Consortium of Indian Defence Websites
https://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/
“China has wiped out millions of nomadic populations in the border areas”, says Mongolian Human Rights group director
https://www.opindia.com/2020/10/china-h ... der-areas/
The Communist regime in China has been at the forefront of the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities in InnerMongolia. During a webinar[pdf] titled, ‘Global Campaign for Democratic China: Uniting Against Chinese Communist Party’s Repressive Regime’ held on October 1 by an Indian think tank named Law and Society Alliance, the Director of Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre Enghebatu Togochog emphasised on how China is wiping out millions of nomadic tribes from border areas.
China has gone into a soft form of food rationing nationwide, as UN warns of worst global food crisis in 50 yrs. Everyone from Alibaba's Jack Ma to elementary students under pressure to comply. Some restaurants switch to half-portions, others issue fines.
Pork prices are just crazy this year. And China has depleted its corn reserves. There is still enough food for folks to eat in China, but not enough for everyone to eat what they want when they want to.
Here are elementary school students at one school in southern China proving they cleaned their plates. They also have to send pics of their dinners at home each day to the school https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/WCMCKEbWAkTv
INSIGHT-How a Chilean raspberry scam dodged food safety controls from China to Canada
Dave Sherwood
Tue, October 6, 2020, 5:00 AM CDT
By Dave Sherwood
SANTIAGO, Oct 6 (Reuters) - In January 2017, Chilean Customs inspectors acted on a tip from a whistleblower: The country’s prized crop of raspberries was under threat.
Inspectors raided the offices of Frutti di Bosco, a little-known fruit trading company on the second floor of a tower block in downtown Santiago.
The files, company data and sales records they seized revealed a food trading racket that spanned three continents.
At its heart was a fraud centered on raspberries. Low-cost frozen berries grown in China were shipped to a packing plant in central Chile. Hundreds of tons of fruit were repackaged and rebranded by Frutti di Bosco as premium Chilean-grown organics, then shipped to consumers in Canadian cities including Vancouver and Montreal, according to documents prepared by Chilean Customs as part of its investigation. The agency calculated that at least $12 million worth of mislabeled raspberries were sent to Canada between 2014 and 2016.
Much of that product, the documents showed, came from Harbin Gaotai Food Co Ltd, a Chinese supplier. Canadian health authorities later linked berries from Harbin Gaotai to a 2017 norovirus outbreak in Quebec that sickened hundreds of people. Canadian authorities issued a recall on Harbin Gaotai berries coming directly to Canada from China dating back to July 2016.
What they didn’t realize is that Harbin Gaotai raspberries had also entered Canada through a backdoor during that period in the form of falsely labeled fruit shipped from Chile by Frutti di Bosco.
The scheme, pieced together for the first time by Reuters, lays bare the ease with which mislabeled, potentially risky products can be slipped past the world's health and customs agencies, even as authorities across the globe scramble to ensure foods entering their countries are free of a new scourge - COVID-19.
Harbin Gaotai did not reply to requests to comment for this report.
Frutti di Bosco’s owner, Cesar Ramirez, who was convicted last year in Chile for falsifying export documents to facilitate the scheme, declined to speak with Reuters. His attorney declined to comment.
Reuters examined thousands of pages of legal filings, investigation documents and trade records obtained through freedom-of-information requests in Chile and Canada. Reuters also spoke to more than two dozen people with knowledge of the case, including the manager of a fruit-packing house that uncovered the deception.
Pulling off the fraud was relatively simple, the investigation revealed.
The Canada-Chile trade pact, which came into force in 1997, allows exporters to self-certify the provenance of their goods, trade experts said. The agreement allowed the mislabeled berries to enter Canada tariff-free, evading a 6% levy slapped on the same fruit imported directly from China, Chilean Customs documents show.
More lucrative still, conventional fruit represented as “organic” could fetch premium prices, piggybacking on Chile’s reputation for safety and quality. Documents certifying the fruit as organic were faked, customs inspectors found.
(For a graphic on how the scam worked, see: https://tmsnrt.rs/33jP0VY)
CHILE KEPT IT QUIET
Chile’s export fruit industry, alerted by Customs to the whistleblower complaint in late 2016, immediately grasped the potential fallout for the $7 billion sector, according to correspondence obtained by Reuters under Chile’s Transparency Act.
The southern hemisphere nation stocks grocers in the United States, Canada and Europe with grapes, cherries, blueberries and raspberries in the northern winter. If word got out that Chile’s fruit was not what it purported to be – or worse still, if someone got sick - it could tarnish its hard-won image.
"This situation could generate serious problems for the food industry in our country," Ronald Bown, head of the Chilean Fruit Exporters Association, wrote in a Nov. 15, 2016 letter to Customs obtained by Reuters. He asked the agency to investigate the whistleblower’s allegations and warned of “the closing of markets” to Chilean fruit.
Bown confirmed writing the letter and repeated the same concerns when approached by Reuters on July 30.
Chile did not notify Canada that anything was amiss, however, according to Canadian officials. An alert failed to materialize even after Ramirez, Frutti di Bosco’s owner, alleged he had colluded with the buyer of the fruit - Montreal-based Alasko Foods Inc - to ship the illicit products to Canada, according to Chilean investigation records.
Canada’s food inspection agency said it is now investigating the matter after Reuters contacted authorities there for this story.
Alasko denied wrongdoing. The company is insolvent and entered into receivership last month, according to documents filed Sept. 10 in Quebec Superior Court by financial consultancy Raymond Chabot, Inc, the court-appointed receiver. Raymond Chabot declined to comment.
Alasko officials did not respond to requests for comment regarding the receivership.
The company's promotional materials claim it is one of Canada’s leading purveyors of frozen fruit, with products sold in Costco and Sam’s Club. Costco declined to comment. Sam's Club did not respond to a request for comment.
Ramirez told Chilean Customs investigators that Alasko ordered the repackaging of the Chinese berries "because it was more economical to do it in Chile," to take advantage of the Chile-Canada free-trade deal, Customs records show. He made the same allegations in a civil lawsuit he filed in Chile´s capital Santiago in June 2019, claiming Alasko had “directly financed and supervised” the operation. Canada received 84% of Frutti di Bosco’s produce shipments, the Customs investigation found.
Ramirez last year pleaded guilty to two criminal counts of making false statements on export declarations. He received a $6,266 fine and a suspended 122-day jail sentence. Chilean Customs had recommended a maximum fine of $55.6 million.
His lawsuit seeks $26 million in damages from Alasko and Chilean businessman Mauricio Rebolledo. Ramirez claims in the suit he was duped into participating as a front man in the scam by Rebolledo, whom he alleges operated on behalf of Alasko.
Ramirez told Chilean Customs his firm paid sales commissions to a business tied to Rebolledo, according to investigators’ notes on the raid of Frutti di Bosco’s offices seen by Reuters. Customs did not mention Rebolledo in its final report about the investigation.
Prosecutors did not charge Rebolledo in the case.
In a written response to Reuters, Rebolledo said he was an independent fruit broker who had done business with both Frutti di Bosco and Alasko. He said he was not Alasko’s representative in Chile.
Rebolledo denied wrongdoing and said Ramirez’s allegations about his involvement in the illegal scheme were “false and tendentious.” Rebolledo said the civil suit was “unjustified” and an attempt by Ramirez to “confuse and hold others responsible” for his own misdeeds.
Alasko and Rebolledo have contested the suit, arguing it should be thrown out on grounds of inadequate evidence. The case is pending.
Frutti di Bosco continued shipping fruit, including raspberries labeled as Chilean, to Alasko through at least 2018, according to internal company shipping documents and export declarations viewed by Reuters.
Alasko said in a March 6 statement that it has always complied with all regulations on fruit imports and exports. It said it no longer does business with Frutti di Bosco and declined to comment specifically on that firm’s illicit activity.
“It is the responsibility of the growers and packers to have the proper food safety and organic certifications, and to provide the associated documentation” required for shipments to Canada, Alasko said in the email.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), however, said importers also play a key role in keeping consumers safe. The “onus is on importers of food into Canada to ensure that they source safe food from reliable suppliers and that the food meets all Canadian regulatory requirements,” the CFIA told Reuters in an email.
A Canadian government spokeswoman said her country’s Foreign Ministry, the CFIA and the Canada Border Services Agency had no records of the case or communication about it from the Chilean government.
Chilean trade expert Hugo Baierlein said the reported lack of communication was highly irregular. He said it would have been standard practice for Chilean officials to reach out in such circumstances. Baierlein served as director of foreign trade for SOFOFA, the Federation of Chilean Industry, an umbrella group that represents Chilean industry.
Chilean Customs would not say whether it had contacted Canada, and that any such communications would be confidential.
The economic relations arm of Chile´s Foreign Ministry declined to answer questions about whether Chile had informed Canada. The agency defended Chile’s handling of the case. “The administrative and judicial procedures operated fully,” a spokeswoman said.
Neither Chile´s Foreign or Customs ministries would comment on any new steps they have taken to deter cheating and ensure the integrity of the country's produce exports.
‘SO OBVIOUS’
Chilean Customs officials were alerted to something fishy in late 2016, when they received a letter from Fruticola Olmue, one of the country’s top fruit-packing plants, located in Chillan, 250 miles south of the capital.
Juan Sutil, the owner of a major Chilean food conglomerate and now head of Chile’s influential Chamber of Commerce and Production, had purchased Fruticola Olmue the previous year. An internal audit raised red flags about work the plant had done for Frutti di Bosco, according to a letter dated Oct. 24, 2016, seen by Reuters, which was signed by Fruticola Olmue General Manager Juan Miguel Ovalle.
Ovalle’s team found that the Fruticola Olmue plant had repackaged imported fruit into plastic bags labeled as Chilean organics, a practice that started under the facility’s previous owners in 2014 and was still happening when new management discovered it, according to documents in the Chilean Customs investigation.
Max Hassler, the former CEO of Fruticola Olmue and a current member of its board of directors, did not reply to a request for comment. He was not charged by prosecutors.
In the first seven months of 2016 alone, Fruticola Olmue appeared to have packed at least 400 tonnes of mislabeled fruit bound for Canada, enough to fill 25 shipping containers, its letter to Customs said.
“It was so obvious,” Ovalle, who no longer works for Fruticola Olmue, told Reuters. “All of (Frutti di Bosco’s) raw material was imported.”
Fruticola Olmue cut ties with Frutti di Bosco on Oct. 24, 2016, the same day it alerted Customs, according to a separate letter it sent to Frutti di Bosco and seen by Reuters. Fruticola Olmue told Reuters it no longer does business with Ramirez, Canadian frozen fruit firm Alasko, or Rebolledo, the fruit broker.
Searching Frutti di Bosco’s books, Customs inspectors found that between 2014 and 2016 the company had exported more than 3,600 tonnes of fruit and vegetables. The provenance of half that produce wasn’t clear, agency records show. Canada was by far the top export destination, but Frutti di Bosco also shipped to the United States, Kuwait, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. In their final report to agency leaders, Customs inspectors recommended the investigation be expanded to determine the sources of all the company's produce.
The investigation dossier provides no evidence of an expanded probe. Customs told Reuters it pursued all avenues and that no open questions remained.
The agency’s final report said Alasko was a major supplier of foreign-sourced fruit that Frutti di Bosco imported into Chile, as well as the top purchaser of Frutti di Bosco’s exports. Chilean Customs did not recommend criminal charges against Alasko.
It did, however, state in its final report that the “scope of this investigation goes beyond our national territory,” and that it appeared “Chinese and Canadian companies” had used Chile as a middleman to dodge tariffs.
Guillermo Gonzalez, head of ChileAlimentos, a trade group that represents Chile´s food industry, condemned the raspberry fraud, but called it an “isolated” incident.
Others aren’t so sure. Complex global supply chains mean law enforcement can’t keep up with players looking to game the system, according to Gary Ades, a U.S.-based food safety consultant.
A dragnet led by Europol and Interpol across 78 countries, including the United States and much of Europe, turned up 16,000 tonnes and 33 million liters of suspect food and drink in just five months in late 2018 and 2019. Consultants estimate food fraud costs the global industry billions of dollars annually.
Ades said the faux Chilean fruit caper would have been easy to pull off. “You just get it into a packing house, and you can’t tell where things are going,” he said. “It’s very, very difficult to trace.”
ILLNESS IN CANADA
As Chile investigated Frutti di Bosco in early 2017, Canada saw an outbreak of norovirus, a highly contagious stomach flu often triggered by food tainted with human feces. It ripped through convalescent homes and children’s daycare centers in Quebec between March and August of 2017, according to a report from Quebec's Health Ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. More than 700 people fell ill, the ministry said.
The culprit: Frozen raspberries imported from China, according to an investigation by Canada’s CFIA, the food inspection agency. The supplier: Harbin Gaotai, one of the major sources of raspberries repackaged in the Chilean export scam. Reuters obtained a copy of the CFIA report on the probe via Canada’s Access to Information Act.
Harbin Gaotai, based in Binzhou, China, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Its products have raised concerns elsewhere. The company since 2009 has been on a U.S. Food and Drug Administration watchlist after American authorities found raspberry shipments containing illegal pesticide residue.
In Canada, the outbreak prompted a recall of all raspberry products originating from Harbin Gaotai arriving in Canada between July 24, 2016 and July 26, 2017. The Canadian investigation identified Canada’s Alasko Foods as one of three importers of the tainted berries.
The Chilean Customs investigation showed that Frutti di Bosco was shipping repackaged Chinese raspberries to Alasko in Canada until the end of 2016, which directly overlapped with the period of the Canadian recall.
Some of those Chinese berries were supplied by Harbin Gaotai and shipped to Chile via a middleman - New Zealand-based Directus South East Asia Ltd - according to international trade and ship cargo data viewed by Reuters.
Directus told Reuters it had shipped raspberries to Chile in 2016 but was "not aware of any fraud." It said it had no relationship with Alasko or Frutti di Bosco beyond those shipments.
No one knows whether the Harbin Gaotai raspberries imported via Chile contributed to the Canadian norovirus outbreak. Canadian authorities, unaware at the time of the illicit triangulation, said they never knew to look.
($1 = 797.9 Chilean pesos)
(Reporting by Dave Sherwood in Santiago; Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Marla Dickerson)
Corrupting the College Board
https://www.nas.org/reports/corrupting- ... ull-report
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This report is about the College Board, itself the subject of a Chinese government influence campaign. Most Americans know the College Board as the force behind the SAT and the AP exams. Few know that it has partnered closely with the Chinese government not only in the development of the AP Chinese Language and Culture exam, but in multiple ongoing programs and projects, including an annual conference.
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When people say India is so useless to have less exports than Vietnam... the above incident is the answer.At its heart was a fraud centered on raspberries. Low-cost frozen berries grown in China were shipped to a packing plant in central Chile. Hundreds of tons of fruit were repackaged and rebranded by Frutti di Bosco as premium Chilean-grown organics, then shipped to consumers in Canadian cities including Vancouver and Montreal, according to documents prepared by Chilean Customs as part of its investigation
Ahead of Taiwan's National Day, China asks Indian media to follow One-China policy
https://www.wionews.com/india-news/ahea ... icy-333190
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In a letter to the Indian media, the Chinese mission said, "would like to remind our media friends that there is only one China in the world" and the "Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China."
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Taiwan wants Indian media to say 'GET LOST' to China for asking them to follow 'one China' policy
https://www.opindia.com/2020/10/taiwan- ... ensorship/
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Taiwan reacts to Chinese diktat to Indian media
Reacting to the Chinese diktat to Indian media, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister of Taiwan Joseph Wu on Wednesday said that he hoped the Indian media would ask the Chinese mission to “get lost”.
“India is the largest democracy on earth with a vibrant press and freedom-loving people. But it looks like communist China hoping to march into the subcontinent by imposing censorship,” Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said.
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MEA reminds Beijing, 'Free media in India' after Chinese mission sent letter advising how to report
https://www.wionews.com/india-news/mea- ... ort-333570
India's dealing with Taiwan needs to be centered around complete and total 'Freedom' for Tibet in exchange for complete and total recognition of the Taiwanese government as a legitimate political stakeholder in a post CCP world. What happens with Xinjiang or Inner Mongolia is not our concern irrespective of what historical threads existed.srin wrote:Regarding Taiwan, IIRC Taiwan has the same PRC policy for Tibet. So, asking us to abandon the "One China" policy related to Taiwan but without being explicit about their stance on Tibet is a bit disingenous.
I think we should publicly revoke the "One china" policy regarding Tibet. As far as Taiwan goes, it should be reciprocated by their revocation of claims over Tibet and shifting a significant percentage of investment of Taiwanese companies (like Foxconn) to India.
No this is incorrect. Please see the following series of conversations earlier in this thread:srin wrote:Regarding Taiwan, IIRC Taiwan has the same PRC policy for Tibet. So, asking us to abandon the "One China" policy related to Taiwan but without being explicit about their stance on Tibet is a bit disingenous.
I think we should publicly revoke the "One china" policy regarding Tibet. As far as Taiwan goes, it should be reciprocated by their revocation of claims over Tibet and shifting a significant percentage of investment of Taiwanese companies (like Foxconn) to India.
i think those in know should know...the question is why they havent acted yet..waiting for all the snakes to show themselves??darshan wrote:Who knows how many are on chinese payroll that chinese had to resort to public message instead of sending each media person chinese command in person.
#freetibet
MEA reminds Beijing, 'Free media in India' after Chinese mission sent letter advising how to report
https://www.wionews.com/india-news/mea- ... ort-333570
https://swarajyamag.com/insta/video-pos ... y-in-delhi
Large poster wishing Taiwan on its ‘National Day’ have come up outside the Chinese Embassy Complex in New Delhi’s Chanakyapuri.
Madras High court raises concern over India’s over-dependence on Chinese pharma ingredients
https://www.wionews.com/india-news/madr ... nts-334145
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The Court notes that the economic advantage of importing APIs from China has led to India losing its scientific-edge and self-reliance in APIs. It is said that China is able to sell their APIs to India at 25% of the cost that it would take to manufacture in India. “As a result, our country that had once built 99.7% self-reliance in APIs went on to import over 90% of its API requirements from China”, the Court said. “At one stage, even the National Security Advisor (‘NSA’) has cautioned the Government of the danger to our national security on account of this excess import dependence from a single nation” it added.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... f=frV97TwVhttps://twitter.com/tracyalloway/status ... 9490686976
Chinese military has built full-scale replicas of Taiwan's Presidential Office Building in Inner Mongolia
Beijing’s optimistic version of events goes something like this: Prior to an invasion, cyber and electronic warfare units would target Taiwan’s financial system and key infrastructure, as well as U.S. satellites to reduce notice of impending ballistic missiles. Chinese vessels could also harass ships around Taiwan, restricting vital supplies of fuel and food.
Airstrikes would quickly aim to kill Taiwan’s top political and military leaders, while also immobilizing local defenses. The Chinese military has described some drills as “decapitation” exercises, and satellite imagery shows its training grounds include full-scale replicas of targets such as the Presidential Office Building.
An invasion would follow, with PLA warships and submarines traversing some 130 kilometers (80 miles) across the Taiwan Strait. Outlying islands such as Kinmen and Pratas could be quickly subsumed before a fight for the Penghu archipelago, which sits just 50 kilometers from Taiwan and is home to bases for all three branches of its military. A PLA win here would provide it with a valuable staging point for a broader attack.
BJP leader Tajinder Bagga puts Taiwan National Day hoarding outside the Chinese embassy, draws praise from Taiwanese MP and citizens
https://www.opindia.com/2020/10/tajinde ... se-embasy/
Xilinx soars 17% on report rival AMD is in talks to buy it for $30 billion
https://markets.businessinsider.com/new ... 1029665920
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Xilinx produces chips used in data centers and 5G communications base stations. Its shares tumbled through 2019 after US-China trade tensions limited shipments from Chinese tech giant Huawei. The firm accounts for as much as 8% of Xilinx's revenue.
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Sir, it's connected and I believe that you may have made a point yourself in your post. The disturbance in the industry is when chinese pick up many brains and look to catch up. chinese are excellent at cultivation and tracking talent. Xilinx's interactions with Huawei would have allowed such connections to be developed.chanakyaa wrote:^^ darshan saar, this news is not directly China related.
Nearly 150 China-focused experts and academics signed on to a letter this week expressing their support for Anne-Marie Brady, a professor at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury, whose work on the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign political interference has been the target of a review by the school’s vice chancellor.
The paper that triggered the review is “Holding a Pen in One Hand, Gripping a Gun in the Other,” Brady’s investigation of how China’s People’s Liberation Army has infiltrated civil society and higher education in New Zealand for the purposes of military research. The CCP “is preparing China for what the Chinese leadership believes is an inevitable war,” Brady writes in the paper. “The New Zealand government needs to work with businesses and universities to devise a strategy to prevent the transfer of military-end-use technology to China.” The report asserts that New Zealand universities — including the Victoria University of Wellington, Massey University, and Lincoln University — have partnerships with Huawei, in addition to alleging the participation of academics in Beijing’s Thousand Talents Program.
The University of Canterbury’s vice chancellor, Cheryl de la Ray, ordered a review into the report after Brady presented it to New Zealand’s parliament this past summer. De la Ray put the paper under review because it has “manifest errors of fact and misleading inferences,” Canterbury’s deputy vice chancellor of research Ian Wright told Stuff, the biggest news website in the country. A number of the academics and universities mentioned in the document have denied Brady’s claims.
Brady declined a request for comment, saying that she has been instructed by university administrators not to discuss the inquiry. But the academics who signed onto this week’s letter have defended the integrity of her scholarship and maintained that the accusations against her are baseless. Among them are Adrian Zenz, the researcher who has spurred a public reckoning with the CCP’s drive to eradicate its Uyghur population in Xinjiang, and Clive Hamilton, the Australian professor who wrote a book that brought widespread public attention to Chinese political interference in his country.
Describing the “ground-breaking” nature and “profound impact internationally” of Brady’s work, the letter states:
We, who know this area, can see no manifest errors or misleading inferences based on the evidenced material provided in the report. The paper does not make “inferences.” People who study it may draw some, but that does not mean the paper made them, misleading or otherwise. Since Professor Wright publicly voiced the allegations a group of us peers again went through Professor Brady’s Parliamentary submission. We find in it no basis for the allegations. Some of the links in its comprehensive sourcing have gone stale since she submitted it but those URLs all still work if put into Wayback or archive.today.
We are disappointed to see no prompt follow-up, explanation or clarification of the University’s position concerning the allegations. The impression left by that published report should have been corrected to show that the University did not intend any endorsement of the complaints, nor an approval or acceptance of complaints to the University as the appropriate way to criticise academic work. The silence has been interpreted as collaboration in slander against a very distinguished scholar whose work has been consistently based on sound social scientific methodology.
Brady has previously faced harassment for her work on Chinese influence. Over the past couple of years, she has been the target of break-ins, mail tampering, and theft of banking information, she told the New Zealand Herald in 2019. The reason for this is no secret: Her work on China’s political influence in New Zealand paints the picture of a country whose participation in international organizations, close access to Antarctica, dairy industry, and research on technologies with military applications has made it an enticing target. New Zealand’s value to Beijing is also “as a soft underbelly through which to access Five Eyes intelligence,” she has written of the intelligence partnership that also includes the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Brady’s travails raise further questions about the true level of CCP influence in New Zealand and around the world, and about how people who stand to be embarrassed by their ties to the Chinese regime work quietly to deter dissent. Charles Burton, a senior fellow at the MacDonald Laurier Institute in Canada who was one of the letter’s organizers, called it “unfortunate that this matter is being addressed in a secret university tribunal” without due process or public scrutiny. Burton also says he worries that some human-resources departments could see this situation as an invitation to take similar Beijing-friendly steps going forward.
There’s no evidence that Canterbury undertook its review of Brady’s work at the behest of the Chinese government, which makes the episode even more worrying. After all, when foreigners with an interest in preserving their ties to the CCP suppress scholarship inconvenient to its strategic aims on their own, the regime’s aggressive, malignant foreign policy becomes that much harder to counteract.
After the 2008 financial crisis, China emerged as a major geopolitical force, advancing its values and interests. Today, as we see a second great economic divergence, we should expect more profound geopolitical consequences.
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While many observers were initially startled by what they labelled China’s “new assertiveness”, escalating ambitions are quite normal in the history of relative power shifts among great nations. Gross domestic product is not everything. But it forms the substructure of power in international relations. It funds a nation’s military and intelligence capabilities, technical reach, and economic capacity to affect other nations through imports, exports, investment and cheap loans or grants.
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As the US and Europe struggle to contain coronavirus, get their economies back to growth and manage internal political divisions, expect an emboldened China to become ever more challenging on the world stage.
there is a slowly building concensus for members of the QUAD along with some non cheeni partners to take over the building of the KRA canal. there are some indications that the thai govt may be far more inclined to prefer this alternative rather than the cheeni debt trap option with the in built asset forclosing model.g.sarkar wrote:https://theprint.in/defence/india-sees- ... ed/516470/
India sees debt diplomacy at play in China-backed Thai canal, finds talk of gains exaggerated
The Kra canal project envisages a canal cutting across Thailand, and connecting the Gulf of Thailand to the Andaman Sea. It seeks to offer an alternative route to busy Malacca Strait.
Snehesh Alex Philip 4 October, 2020
New Delhi: China’s push to build the Kra canal with Thailand, which would offer an alternative route to the busy Malacca Strait, is part of Beijing’s ‘debt diplomacy’ and could end up as a “White Elephant project”, an initial internal assessment by the Indian government says. The Kra canal project envisages a canal cutting across Thailand, and connecting the Gulf of Thailand to the Andaman Sea. Like several other projects, the Kra Canal project is also part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and is being touted as a new gateway to China’s 21st century Maritime Silk Road.
There is a growing belief that the canal could end up being the next front in the India-China standoff.
New Delhi, however, believes that the canal could end up as another ‘White Elephant project’, a reference to an idiom that seeks to describe an entity that is far costlier than it’s useful. “China’s ploy of debt diplomacy is obviously at play and it could end up being a white elephant project. The ports of Hambantota and Gwadar, which have been ceded to China by Sri Lanka and Pakistan, demonstrate the true motives behind the Kra canal — a ploy to gain sovereignty over the Kra Isthmus in exchange for debt — a scenario that would strike at the very viability of Thailand as a nation,” reads the internal assessment of the project by the defence and security establishment.
Project will negatively affect Thailand: Assessment
China has projected the Kra canal as a dream project and a means to improve maritime transportation in the region, akin to the Suez and the Panama canals, the assessment says. It adds that like its other projects, Beijing is flaunting it as an excellent opportunity for Thailand to enhance its economic potential by affording financial gain to maritime traders and charging toll fees and port usage charges. China also claims that the project will lead to development of the Kra Isthmus region and generate large employment opportunities for local residents. “It is also claimed that the canal will greatly benefit East Asian countries and littorals of IOR (Indian Ocean Rim Association) since the canal would result in reducing maritime transportation costs,” reads the Indian government’s internal assessment. “This saving has been described as close to 1,200 km in distance and 72 hours saving in time, to reach the Indian Ocean.”
Stating the geo-strategic significance of the project, the assessment mentions that Thailand, located in Southeast Asia, has the South China Sea (SCS) to the East and Andaman Sea to the West.
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Gautam
Embedded Yahoo news link that I haven't read ...France escalates China push, appoints ambassador for Indo-Pacific https://bit.ly/33Omg86 Pushes for Indo-Pacific "axis, with France, India and Australia as its backbone" to develop foreign-policy. Trilateral dialogue would work separately from "the Quad.
US advances three arms sales packages to Taiwan https://news.yahoo.com/us-advances-thre ... soc_trk=tw via @YahooNews